12 Professional Goals Examples (+How to Achieve Them)
13 min read
Most career-minded people are already familiar with the important role that goals play in their short and long-term success. After all, it’s difficult to know when you’ve achieved success if you never take the time to set goals that define your expectations. It’s important to remember, however, that larger goals are not the only ones you need to establish if you want to continue moving forward along your career path. You’ll also need to focus on a variety of smaller professional goals to help you develop the skills and traits you need to reach those broader career objectives.
In this post, we will examine the idea of professional goals and explain how they can help you advance your career. We will also look at twelve examples of good professional goals and offer some vital tips that can help you establish and achieve your own professional growth objectives.
What are professional goals?
If you’re committed to growing as a person and professional, you’re going to spend a lot of time setting goals. As you do so, you will set personal goals that help you develop as an individual in your personal life. But what about growth as an employee? Well, for that, you will need to learn how to set and pursue professional goals.
Professional goals are all those objectives you establish for yourself to help you develop skills, traits, and relationships that can advance your career. While they are work and career-related, they should not be confused with daily tasks, project objectives, or other duties and responsibilities attached to your role in the workplace. Instead, professional goals are related to improving yourself as a professional so that you can perform all those duties and responsibilities with greater success.
Why should you have professional goals?
Unless you are content to remain at your current skill level and have no interest in advancing your career, you should always be looking for new opportunities to continue your development. The ability and willingness to set professional goals is a large part of that development process since it enables you to:
Identify areas you’d like to improve
Determine the best options for making those improvements
Create a strategy that can help you achieve your objective
Measure your progress and recognize when your goal is met
There are many benefits to professional goals that go beyond the obvious advantage of learning new skills. For example, learning how to set and pursue these goals can bring greater fulfillment in your professional life as you reach various milestones and take pride in your own growth. That steady development can also motivate you to set even bigger goals for yourself as your confidence in your capabilities and potential grows over time.
Goals to set at work: Examples
There are a whole host of potential professional goals that you can set for yourself, but sometimes it can be difficult to identify the right ones for your career needs. Below, we will consider some of the top potential goals you should consider as you think about ways to enhance your growth as a professional.
1. Learn a new technical skill
Depending on your chosen career path, learning a new technical skill might be one of the best decisions you can make. Technology is changing at an amazing pace, and the tech-based skills you possess today may be obsolete within just a few short years. Moreover, a failure to stay up to date with the latest technological trends could directly impede your ability to meet your future career goals.
Even more important, though, is the fact that adding new technical skills to your skill set will only increase your value as an employee. Whether you want to learn a new computer program or study the latest tech trends like artificial intelligence or big data, these professional goals are sure to be worth your time and effort.
2. Improve your interpersonal skills
Career advancement requires more than technical skills. To get ahead in your professional life, you will also need to have well-developed interpersonal skills. That will mean taking the time to develop critical soft skills like empathy, active listening, and negotiation – as well as other skills that can help you to productively interact with other people, collaborate effectively, and make real connections.
To improve these skills, you can use a variety of strategies. For example, there are online courses that you can take to enhance your negotiating skills, learn how to listen to others more effectively, resolve conflicts, and speak in public settings. In addition, you can find videos, online forums, and a host of other resources to aid you in achieving these types of professional goals.
3. Enhance your credentials
One of your professional goals may also include boosting your credentials to ensure that you have the right qualifications as you advance in your career. Credentials can include everything from formal college degrees to certifications and other professional validation that demonstrates your learned skills and qualifications. Learning should be a continuous process, so don’t be afraid to include this objective in any list of professional goals.
4. Become an expert in your field
When setting professional goals, don’t miss out on one of the most effective ways to ensure that others recognize your value: become an expert at what you do. Focus on gaining mastery over your job role, ensuring that you know your job backward and forward. But don’t stop there. If you’re going to develop expertise, you might as well push your own boundaries as far as they can go. Study and learn everything you can about your company, its competitors, and the entire industry.
To do that, you may need to commit to reading trade periodicals, following industry news, and staying up to date on all the latest trends in your sector. One great way to start pursuing this professional goal is to dedicate just fifteen or thirty minutes a day to developing your knowledge base. Over time, that cumulative learning will ensure that you develop the type of expertise that can dramatically enhance your career prospects.
5. Grow your professional network
If you’re one of those people who only tinkers at maintaining a professional network, you might want to consider taking that effort more seriously. In fact, one of your professional goals could be to increase your network by a set number of contacts and then focus time each day on developing those contacts into meaningful professional relationships. For some great tips to help you increase your networking efficiency, read our post, 10 Tips to Successfully Network Online.
6. Develop your leadership abilities
If your career aspirations include taking on a leadership role, then there’s no time like the present to add leadership development to your list of professional goals. Focus on developing and displaying key leadership traits like accountability, decisiveness, inclusiveness, and empathy. Practice your problem-solving and communication skills. Take leadership classes, participate in seminars, and read everything you can get your hands on to see how effective leaders find success.
You can also check out our post, Tips You Can Use to Choose the Right Leadership Style for You, if you want to learn more about the different ways you can lead.
7. Build stronger work relationships
The ability to build strong relationships at work can be a tremendous asset when it comes to reaching your career goals. By focusing on learning how to strengthen and deepen those relationships, you can expand your close network of colleagues and learn new ways to collaborate with others. Practice your listening skills, pay attention to how you communicate ideas to others, and commit to taking an interest in your coworkers, supervisors, and subordinates.
8. Find or become a mentor
Truly successful people can usually point to someone who provided mentorship for them in the past. In turn, they are often eager and willing to share their experiences and knowledge by mentoring others. Finding a mentor can be a great way to learn key leadership skills and life lessons that can help you in every aspect of your career. Meanwhile, becoming a mentor can allow you to help others in ways that provide a whole host of benefits and insights into your own career progression.
9. Improve your time management
If there’s one resource that always seems to be in short supply, it’s time. That’s why time management skills are so critical for career success. Do an honest assessment of your ability to manage tasks and deadlines and consider whether improvement in that area might be a worthy professional goal. If so, commit to learning more about how you use your time and make a conscious effort to develop better strategies to manage it.
10. Strengthen your personal brand
Creating or strengthening your personal brand is another of the best professional goals you can pursue if you want to succeed in your industry. If you look at the most successful businesspeople around the world, they each have their own unique personal brand attached to their careers. You can use your social media accounts, a personal professional web page, and other online tools to craft a narrative that presents you as an expert at your job.
To do this effectively, however, your strategy should include your offline brand as well. These two brands must be consistent with one another since any discrepancy might detract from your overall brand message. In other words, make sure that you present yourself the same way, whether in-person or online.
11. Be more organized
Organization is not always easy, especially when you’re pressed for time and struggling to get things done. However, there are a whole host of advantages to being organized. One of the most obvious involves your ability to manage time. When your schedule, office, and outside life are organized in a coherent manner, it makes it easier to achieve your objectives in a time-efficient way.
12. Improve your teamwork
If you want to have a greater positive impact on your work environment, set a goal that involves becoming a better team player. Commit to developing the skills needed to collaborate effectively with other colleagues and focus on learning how to share responsibility and credit for achievements. As you develop these skills and put them into practice, you will also strengthen key leadership traits, build relationships, and expand your skill set in ways that make you an even more valuable part of your team.
Of course, there are many other professional goals that you can focus on, including:
Learning to eliminate distractions when you’re working
Improving your work ethic
Developing skills to help you start your own business
Finding greater career satisfaction
Increase your professional resilience
Learn how to provide more effective feedback
Tips to help you achieve your professional goals
Of course, knowing how to set good professional goals is only part of the battle. You also need to know how to achieve those goals. While we’ve offered some tips to help you pursue some of the previously mentioned objectives, there are also some broader strategies that you can use to set and meet your goals. For example:
Set goals that meet your professional needs
The first step in achieving any professional goals is to establish your objectives. That begins with taking stock of where you are in your career to assess your current value and identify areas that could benefit from improvement.
Think about tasks and projects you’ve worked on where you struggled to achieve the best results. Which skills or traits would have helped you do better?
Now think about your career goals. Which abilities and habits do you need to develop to reach the next stage of your career advancement? Always make sure that the goals you set will contribute to your professional development and long-term career needs.
Make sure that goals are achievable
One of the most important things to do when establishing these types of goals is to ensure that you are being realistic in your expectations. Think carefully about just how long any of these goals might take to bear fruit in your career, and be prepared to commit to seeing the process through to a successful conclusion. Each of your professional goals needs to be achievable in a defined timeframe to ensure that you can properly track your progress and maintain your motivation.
Create a strategy to achieve your objectives
Once you’ve decided on the right professional goals, you will need to develop a plan that can help you achieve those objectives. The best way to craft that plan is to put it in writing, with clear details about exactly how you intend to accomplish each goal. List each step you intend to take, the amount of time you need to complete the process, and what you plan to achieve when everything is said and done.
This strategic plan should include details about any courses, online study, mentorship, or other resources and avenues you will use in pursuit of your goal. In addition, list any estimated costs that may be associated with your efforts.
Consistently track and evaluate your progress
To measure your results and maintain motivation, you should regularly track your efforts. For each broad goal, set smaller goals that you can use as milestones showing steady progress toward your ultimate objective. As you conduct a self-analysis of that progress, don’t be afraid to alter your plans and adapt them to unforeseen challenges. That way, you can better ensure that you avoid big obstacles that might cause you to give up before you reach your goals.
Get help from others wherever necessary
Never feel like you need to rely solely on outside resources like online courses, seminars, and books or videos. You should also try to encourage friends, co-workers, and family members to support your efforts to meet professional goals. This is especially important when it comes to loved ones since your professional goals will involve an added time commitment beyond your normal working hours. Make sure that your family knows what to expect so that there are no unexpected conflicts at home.
With the right support system in place – including your professional network, mentors at work, or even professional coaching, you will have the tools and resources you need to maintain your focus on achieving your professional goals.
Use professional goals to expand your career options and long-term success
Whatever success you’ve had in your life, it’s certain that your career goals played an important role in getting to where you are. By adding new professional goals to your list of short-term objectives, you can continue to develop and grow your character traits and skills to ensure that you’re ready for the next level of success. By using the examples and tips in this post, you should be able to identify the best possible professional goals for your career needs and make yourself an even greater asset to any employer.
Does your resume convey all the skills your professional goals have helped you develop? Get a free resume review from our team of experts today!
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Written by
Ken Chase, Freelance Writer
During Ken's two decades as a freelance writer, he has covered everything from banking and fintech to business management and the entertainment industry. His true passion, however, has always been focused on helping others achieve their career goals with timely job search and interview advice or the occasional resume consultation. When he's not working, Ken can usually be found adventuring with family and friends or playing fetch with his demanding German Shepherd. Read more resume advice from Ken on ZipJob’s blog.
